What if the good life doesn’t come from having the ability to do what we want, but having the ability to do what we were made for?
What if freedom doesn’t come from avoiding limitations but from choosing the right ones.
“Go to the ant, O Sluggard…!” (Proverbs 6:6)
Message title: Gospel Hope for the Passive-Aggressive
Third week of Summer journey in Wisdom Books, The Good Path
Scriptures: Proverbs 6
Preacher: Jeff Patterson
Date: 7/8/18
Listen to audio:
Notes:
A sluggard has been compared to how cold honey or syrup oozes ever-so-slowly out of the bottle. It. Takes. Too. Long.
That’s the sluggard: slow, hesitant, sluggish. At the precise moment he needs to be quick, decisive, forthright.
His life motto is “Don’t rush me!” (Slow down!) Other Proverbs speak to this individual: “As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed” (26:14).
The sluggard refuses to make up his mind, will not finish things, and won’t face the challenges of life.
So, what should the Sluggard do?
Go to the ant, and take notes, son.
There he will learn about inner motivation, hard work, and future preparation.
Are you getting ready right now, in this day of harvest? In the day of plenty are you taking stock (emotionally, not just financially) so that when the day of difficult comes you are not thrown off as one unprepared.
We live in a society of moral relativism + constant outrage.
(“It doesn’t matter how I live, as long as I don’t hurt anybody! But YOU cannot think or live that way over there.” And yet this passage speaks a better way. Yes, it matters, and that is why God hates it: he wants more for people!)
The Gospel speaks of a new society, the church, where there are moral absolutes + constant kindness.
When we set aside a sluggard’s mentality, and refuse to be “worthless people,” as God describes, we get to be the kind of people God uses to build unity and beauty among flourishing relationships.
New City Catechism
- We also continue with week two of a Summer journey through the New City Catechism as whole church. Learn all about in here. Listen & Catechize!
Q. What is God?
A. God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. He is eternal, infinite, and unchangeable in his power and perfection, goodness and glory, wisdom, justice, and truth. Nothing happens except through him and by his will.
Quotes:
Cicero: ”The gods attend to great matters; they neglect small ones.” 1
Jesus: [The true and living God oversees the great matters and indeed cares about the smallest of matters] ”Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
“The Gospel shows us such glory in God, and in ourselves because of Christ, that gospel-people become accomplishment-hungry.
A Christian family, should be like an anthill, everyone busily accomplishing something.
A healthy church is like an anthill, everyone actively achieving together. Wise people love goals and strategies to leverage their present into a better future.”
—Ray Ortlund, Jr.
“Your danger and mine is not that we become criminals, but rather that we become respectable, decent, commonplace, mediocre Christians.
The twentieth-century temptations that really sap our spiritual power are the television, banana cream pie, the easy chair, and the credit card.
The Christian wins or loses in those seemingly innocent little moments of decision.
Lord, make my life a miracle!”
—Ray Ortlund, Sr.
“The book of Proverbs is a gospel book, because it is part of the Bible. That means the book of Proverbs is good news for bad people. It is about grace for sinners. It is about hope for failures. It is about wisdom for idiots. This book is Jesus himself coming to us as our counselor, as our sage, as our life coach. The Lord Jesus Christ is a competent thinker for all things and all cultures. He is a genius. And he freely others us, even us, his unique wisdom.”
—Ray Ortlund Jr., Proverbs: Wisdom That Works (WTS Books | Amazon)
Scripture Readings:
Proverbs 6:1-19 (ESV)
Practical Warnings
6 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
have given your pledge for a stranger,
2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth,
caught in the words of your mouth,
3 then do this, my son, and save yourself,
for you have come into the hand of your neighbor:
go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.
4 Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
5 save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler.6 Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
7 Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
8 she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.12 A worthless person, a wicked man,
goes about with crooked speech,
13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,
points with his finger,
14 with perverted heart devises evil,
continually sowing discord;
15 therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;
in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
16 There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19 a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Audio for this teaching may be played above, and is included in the RENEW Church podcast: subscribe in iTunes here, or Google Play podcasts here, or access the church podcast feed directly here. (Subscribe below for all new blog posts via email.)
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Roman orator, philosopher, statesman. ↩